Amazon.co.uk Review
Like all good coding books it starts with "Hello world", used in this case to illustrate how to correctly set up your Java environment. After a few more basic examples there is a set of exercises which test your grasp of the material. From then on Flanagan tends to refer you to other books in the series to provide background and reference material relevant to the examples under discussion--a great marketing tool. In practice, any basic Java reference will provide this information. What they won't do is provide so many or such well thought out code examples for you to play with.
After the first few chapters you will be glad all the code is available for download as the examples become longer and more complex with ever less text between them. The simple Web browser example alone goes on for many pages.
Despite starting at the absolute beginning Java Examples In A Nutshell goes to the limits with sections on using RMI, JDBC, XML, servlets, JSP and lots more. It covers GUI programming, sound, encryption, internationalisation and other technologies essential for creating practical programs--all with exercises to ensure you really do understand.
While Java code is available from many Net sites the combination of organisation, examples and exercises make this a massively useful book for any budding or working Java programmer. --Steve Patient
